New Evercade Cartridges Span Continents, Generations

Blaze Entertainment’s Evercade platform continues to roll, defying the odds and sustaining release support for years. What do the two new Evercade cartridges, Roguecraft DX and NeoGeo Arcade 1, offer? Let’s break it down for you!

Roguecraft DX

A recently-developed Amiga indie, Roguecraft is an isometric roguelike that sees you encountering and navigating the one-screen rooms of labyrinth-like dungeons. The edition included here is the “DX” version, which adds a few levels and some leaderboards and achievements. You can see through the manual, as well as the game itself, that the small dev team really loved making this game. It brings a lot of nostalgic elements of the Amiga scene into a game that’s decidedly inspired by modern roguelikes.

The controls are simple. You point the D-pad into an enemy to attack, and use the A button to access the inventory row. This is nice! There might have been just a bit of work to make this control well on the Evercade, and we appreciate it after working through the platform’s other computer collections. (We appreciate Blaze’s continued dedication to companies and platforms that are almost exclusively popular in the UK! But many of us didn’t grow up with them, so adding a bit of accessibility is beneficial.)

It’s also turn-based and thinky, which is something a handheld does extremely well and something we’ve brought up before as a weakness of the platform’s library. You can choose from three characters: the simple Warrior, the slightly weaker Rogue with a teleport ability, and a paper-thin Wizard with a ranged missile attack. The Warrior is great for learning the game’s enemies and quirks, and the other two are best suited as challenge runs once you’ve gotten a handle on things.

NeoGeo Arcade 1

We’ve talked before about the platform’s new deal to bring SNK games to new Evercade cartridges and hardware. We’re big fans of the MVS, so it’s nice to see! Even if the games themselves are available in a ton of places at this point. (And also we wish someone else owned SNK.) This first arcade collection goes for quality over quantity, licensing a few high-profile games.

For most players, The King of Fighters 2000 is probably the headliner. Sort of a culmination of the original iteration of SNK’s work, it was the last KoF before its bankruptcy. There are endless debates from fans about which entry is best, but we think 2000 is a good choice for its balance of depth and classic feel. One note, though: since it is pushing the MVS hardware to its limits when possible, it uses a flashing semi-transparency effect that doesn’t quite work on a modern screen with a high refresh rate. The included manual features pages of special move listings for characters! This is both nostalgic and a nice touch.

We may have enjoyed Metal Slug and Shock Troopers more. These two run-and-gun games are different in perspective, but offer a similar appeal. They’re also… not the best in their series? They’re fine, but in choosing the first games as the representatives of the whole, you do miss some of the later upgrades. For example, Metal Slug has the franchise’s trademark lush animation and ever-lovable rocket lowncher, but it’s lacking in mechanical depth and doesn’t have the optimization later entries got to help with frame rate dips.

Also included: action-platformer Magician Lord, beat-’em-up Sengoku and scrolling shooter Ironclad. The last two are slightly deeper cuts, and worth your time if you’ve never checked them out. As an early release, Sengoku can be a bit clunky, but it has some ideas. Ironclad doesn’t have that problem, with dual-layer fighting and a look that really holds up.

These two new Evercade cartridges, Roguecraft DX and NeoGeo Arcade 1, are available now. For more information and impressions about the system and its games, check out our Evercade archive.